Loved this exchange from the Ray Lewis Boston conference call

It's always a little creepy hearing Ray talk about the tragedy of untimely death. That being said, look at this transcript of his conference call with the New England media. He clearly didn't want to be there, but still gave an opening and agreed to take questions. Then check out the first question he got.

RL: I'm going to be very brutally honest with all of you. Right now is a very emotional time for me because there's a lot going on. The Sean Taylor incident and all - that is really, as a man and as someone that I've kind of mentored, too, it kind of makes you reflect on life. Like I told my guys, it's not anything against the game itself, but when you have to slow down and life brings up this type of issue that you're having with Sean, it kind of takes away everything else. That's why - as far as the game - yeah, I'm going to be there to play, but emotionally I'm just really trying to get through these next couple of days. Dealing with his family, in and out and just trying to deal with a lot of issues, trying to help them out. Football is kind of on the back burner as far as this questioning and that's what I told my guys. I'm not trying to blow you off, but there's just a lot going on with me right now on this end, trying to help the situation out and trying to get over that. [I'm] staying focused on what I've got to do and just let God work and do what He does, but it's a really challenging time for me. I will tell you that because it took me back to when my roommate got killed. It's just a lot of things that brought up a lot of old wounds. I don't want to be disrespectful and do the interview, but I just... the energy to talk about something that, I'd be lying to you, trying to create something that isn't real right now because it's a very emotional time for me.

Q: Are you up for a couple of questions?

RL: I just want to make this real brief because, like I said, football has been the last thing on my mind. You guys don't even have a clue how late I've been up every night just trying to deal with all these different issues. Football, right now, is really the last thing on my mind, but I'll take one or two if we can make it quick, please.
Q: It might sound insensitive, I hope it doesn't, just based on the power of the words you just spoke to us, but what are your thoughts on Adalius [Thomas] and where that situation lies now.

RL: What situation?

Q: The back and forth between you.

RL: Guys, look, I'm totally sorry, but there's no way I can. I just lost one of my closest friends and we're talking about me and Adalius? Wow, I don't understand that and that's why I didn't want to have this conversation. I don't understand that. We're about to play the New England Patriots, I've never played against AD [Thomas]. I'm not going to play against AD. To try to relive something like that when someone loses their life and we're trying to relive gossip, I don't have energy for it. I don't have energy for it. That's what I'm trying to stay away from. If I could just play football and deal with my boy's death and get through this week, I'm good because this really shows you that's really not important if that's what everybody else wants to talk about.

The Sean Taylor thing WAS tough for a lot of UM people, no matter what we think of them collectively sometimes. And I understand Lewis not wanting get into a discussion over some between-teams trashtalking that is essentially completely irrelevant in the big picture, when this is going on.

If you don't want to do the call, here's a strategy that would have been completely OK with me when I was on the NFL beat: Ask your PR guy to get somebody lined up and let the other team's beat writers know about it, come on the phone and make the statement you did, how you're not up for questions this week, then politely hand the call off to your teammate.

When guys didn't want to talk, I always respected that if they just manned up and said exactly why they didn't want to talk. There's 52 other guys in the locker room to talk to, most of the time a lot more interesting than the guy who's blowing you off.